The Diaries of Fenton R. McCreery: Notes on an American Diplomat in Latin America, 1890 - 1911

Abstract

This paper will focus on an examination of the career of Fenton R. McCreery, an American diplomat who lived and worked in Latin America during the period 1890 to 1911. This was the time when that area was first gaining real importance in North American capitalist thinking, when expansion overseas was being perceived as necessary because the western frontier in the United States had already been explored, and when Latin America, due to its proximity, was being viewed as the ideal source of new raw materials and markets for United States corporations. Some of the diaries and notes which Fenton McCreery recorded while he was serving in several Latin American countries will be studied in order to determine, first, how a North American of the time described the problems of those countries and, second, what he perceived to be the role which the United States should play in its relations with them. The opinions and attitudes noted in McCreery's writings will be considered in the light of what several present-day analysts have concluded regarding both the enduring problems of Latin America and the often very difficult relationship between that region and the United States.